


All Mixed Up

by BritomartKnightOfValor



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, My First Work in This Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 09:18:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19742707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BritomartKnightOfValor/pseuds/BritomartKnightOfValor
Summary: Aziraphale has a very silly idea...and Crowley will pay the price.





	1. Chapter 1

Crowley stared at the boy sunglasses in his left hand, his yellow eyes wild and intense. He stood only a few feet from the bookstore. He had no doubt already been inside. He had seen what the boy had done. His expression was more lost than angry but the teen was still afraid."Adam? What did you do?" 

The boy swallowed hard, trying to come up with an answer. He hadn't done anything that the Angel had not asked of him but he still felt guilty. He should have refused, no matter how serious Aziraphale was. "What do you mean?"

Crowley scoffed and took a step forward. "Angel is human. You are holding his Divinity like a snow globe. Help me piece these together before I do something hazardous to my health." 

Adam knew that the demon wouldn't actually hurt him, couldn't actually hurt him. One of the abilities Adam retained was the capacity to compel the Fallen. It had gotten both himself and Crowley into some tough scrapes when the teen was younger.

Adam sighed and made eye contact. "He wanted me to take it out and throw it away. I took it out but then I just couldn't."

Crowley hissed and looked down at his feet."He asked you..."He glanced back towards the bookshop and then back towards the reformed Antichrist. "Oh Angel..." Crowley's voice broke and Adam could see him sink his teeth into his bottom lip until blood ran down to his chin. 

He wiped it away violently and gestured to the treasure in the boy's hand. "Alright boy, give it to me."

Adam only knew what Crowley and Aziraphale had taught him about Angels and Demons but he had seen Aziraphale hurt Crowley by accident when he was too happy, just by touching him. The Angelic always sought to destroy the Demonic...and it was always stronger. 

"But Crowley, it hurts me a little holding it in my hands. What will it do to you?"

Crowley held out his right hand, palm up. "I'm not going to hold it in my hands."

Adam recoiled, realizing what the demon intended to do, and clasped the warm glow in his hands closer to his chest."That will kill you." His blood ran cold in his veins.

Crowley didn't even try to lie or look away."Yes."

"I don't understand." Adam stepped forward again releasing his burden with his right hand and grabbing Crowley's wrist. 

Crowley looked down at the boy with a fond smile. His other hand placed the sunglasses back on his face, hiding his eyes from view. It was a habit that drove Aziraphale insane, the Demon's way of hiding from the world. "Don't worry about it. I just can't let that part of him go, any part of him go really."

Adam shook his head, tightening his grip on Crowley's wrist to the point he could have bruised a human."But you still have the rest of him, for a while."

Crowley sighed and the illusion of eternal youth that usually washed over his features dissipated, allowing Adam to see the tiredness in the lines of his mouth and grief. "Adam, Aziraphale didn't remember me this morning. I have known him for six millennia and he doesn't know me from the Emperor Nero." He shook his head. "A human mind isn't meant to hold 6000 years of memories. And if he did this for the reason I think he did, he is better off if I keep my distance. Not good for a human to have a Serpent hanging around. But if he is alive and I'm alive, I won't be able to stay away. He is my best friend."

Adam looked up at Crowley for a long instant and a short eternity and sighed. He released Crowley's wrist. "How long will you have?" He hated how his voice trembled.

Crowley shrugged."It may kill me in seconds, or I may have days. Aziraphale was no archangel but he is no cherub either." 

Under his glasses Adam could see a stray tear working its way down the demon's face.

Adam looked back towards the bookstore. The human Aziraphale stared at them from the door in confusion, listening to every word. Adam knew that Crowley had to know he was there but didn't care. The part of Aziraphale that was the Demon's best friend, the part he loved was laying in Adam's hand. 

"What will I do without you?" He held out the warm glow of the Angel's cast off Grace and the demon took it in his right hand, wincing even with the heavy glove covering the appendage.

Crowley ruffled his hair."Become a much better man I would suspect. Not good for a boy to only have a Demon around with no one to balance him out."

"But you are not like that." The boy shook his head, tears starting to flood down his face.

"Easy now. Don't cry." Crowley wiped them away with the back of his free hand. "I am a Demon Adam, that is all I am and all I will ever be. Even if so lived 6000 more years, if I lived a million. Without Aziraphale I am just a Demon."

Adam shut his eyes tight and three himself forward, wrapping his arms around the demon's chest."He didn't think so."

Crowley completed the embrace by wrapping his free hand around the nap of the teen's neck. "That was a recent development, and obviously it was not enough."

"I could make you not. I could order you." 

Crowley pressed a fond kiss to the top of the boy's head. He knew the threat was meaningless. "You could force me...but I don't think you want to."

"I will miss you, both of you. I love you..." He stepped out of the embrace and peered up into the Demon's face. The words that Crowley could never say back to him flickered around his features.

"Go home boy and next week come back here and get to know the human Aziraphale.You both should not be alone."

Adam nodded."I will." He looked back at the shop door but Aziraphale was gone.

"That's a good lad."

"Do you want me to send you back to your flat? You might not want to do this on the street."

Crowley looked towards where he had parked his Bentley and took the keys out of his pocket. He pressed them into the boy's right hand. "Give these to him?"

"Of course."

"Thanks" 

Adam waved his hand and willed the Demon back to his flat.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not too late

The Serpent had lived in a world of torment and pain for three days before a familiar voice drew him out of uneasy slumber."Crowley?" It was soft, sweet and desperate in a way only Aziraphale could accomplish.

He blinked hard, his vision switching between snake and human. But there was no mistaking who had wrapped his arms around the demon. 

"Angel?" His throat felt like it was bleeding and words hurt like swallowing glass.

"How on Earth?" Aziraphale watched the demon in his arms as periodically spasm as a white light washed over him. His eyes were still the pale grey of humanity.

Crowley shook his head in confusion and had to stifle a scream as the Grace washed over him again."You remember me." He finally managed to gasp out.

Aziraphale was shaking, tears running down his cheeks."Young Adam kept just a tiny fraction of my Grace but it won't last long." He tightened his grip on his friend as another tremor came and went.

Crowley closed his eyes again and buried his face into the crook of the bookkeepers arm. "That's good, for your sake." The calm acceptance under the pain was heartbreaking.

"Give it back Crowley. This is silly. I was being silly." He sobbed into the top of Crowley's head, red curls stabbing him in the eyes.

Crowley had to wait for another spasm to die down, unable to hold back a cry of agony. "Not silly to try and go home Angel." He panted and groaned as he forced the words out.

Aziraphale tried to get a good look at Crowley's face. He was beginning to bleed from his eyes as they shifted from gorgeous gold and piercing blue. "This is my home. You are my home. You are my best friend."

Several long minutes passed before Crowley could respond, the spasms coming faster now."It's ok Angel." He patted the former Angel's arm.

"How can it be ok?"

"You'll live a good life, have a good death and then go back to The Silver City. You'll be with Her again. You don't need an old tempter mucking that up and I wouldn't be able to help myself."

"Oh Crowley...give it back please." Aziraphale thought he was going to have a heart attack when Crowley went limp in his arms. Fear grabbed him by the throat. "Crowley?"

Adam had been standing by the door, almost entirely forgotten. "He's passed out."

Aziraphale stared at him, not believing until he felt Crowley take a shallow breath. "Can you take it from him?"

Adam shook his head, his red tinted eyes able to see Crowley in a way that the human no longer could. "No, it's all tangled up with his own energy, like it's burning him out."

Anger and helplessness threatened to choke Aziraphale and he choked out"So why bring me here? So I could watch him die? So I could understand that this is my fault?" He realized he was yelling and turned bright red.

Adam bristled, his gaze turned dark and Aziraphale remembered who exactly this child was. 

"You made your decision and he made his."He all but growled. "I only brought you here to say goodbye, he deserves that much."

Aziraphale felt his heart sink and he gently shook the demon in his arms. With Crowley unconsciousness the spasms had slowed but not stopped."Crowley, wake up. You have to give it back. Can you wake him up?"

Adam shook his head. "He will just be in more pain and he won't do it. He thinks this is what's best."

Aziraphale crushed Crowley into his chest and tried to open up every sense his human form possessed. He tried to reach his Grace, even see it as anything other than a torment rushing across his best friend's body. "Please Crowley. I don't want to say goodbye. I am so sorry..."   
He gave up and set his head down on top of the Demon's. 

All was quiet for several agonizing minutes except for Crowley's pained cries. Aziraphale pressed a chaste kiss to the snake tattoo on the side of his friend's face as another wave of Grace threatened to tear him apart. "Goodbye old friend." He whispered in a language neither of them had spoken since leaving the garden.

The tattoo pulsed, warm under his lips and this time the wave of energy flowed up and over Aziraphale too and for an eternity and far too short an instant there was no difference between angel and demon, Grace or demonic energy. Then the Grace poured into him like water over desert sand.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley awakes.

The Demon drifted for a long time between deeply unconscious and nearly awake, victim off the tide of his shattered mind. It was his own fault he had been so badly damaged, Aziraphale's Grace could have killed him in minutes but he had fought, held on tooth and nail in the vague hope...that Aziraphale would remember enough to come and say goodbye. He had even dreamed that he had, a million times for Aziraphale to evaporate before they could touch.

His mind tumbled through six thousand years of memories, his and not his. He re-lived centuries and millennia seeing the pieces where he and the Angel had crossed paths, often from each side. He saw Aziraphale's execution, only this time it was the Angel himself walking into Hellfire. He felt Hell dunk him into holy water. 

There were long periods of darkness and cold so deep that he wondered if he had passed into the nothingness beyond immortal existence. These always ended with fire beginning to crackle and he burned. He would nearly reach consciousness as he screamed in remembered torment. 

But the hurt, the exhaustion, always dragged him back down under sleep's icy waters. 

"Oh my dear, I hope you can hear me." After an eternity of being alone he heard Aziraphale's voice, warm hands touching his face and they drew him back from the abyss that tried to swallow him. "Come back to me."

Crowley woke and felt a deep loss. Someone had taken what remained of his friend from him...well most of it. He still felt some Grace in his chest, a burn both painful and pleasant but it no longer consumed him. It no longer sought to destroy him. 

He felt raw all over, even his wings which for some reason stretched out on the bed on either side of him. They had an odd silvery sheen in the faint light. He narrowed his eyes at them daring them to continue being unreasonable. Then he tried to get up. The world spun.

"Easy, easy Crowley." Warm hands gently held him down on the bed. "You are not up for walking around just yet." Brilliant blue eyes under blonde white curls stared down at him, angel eyes.

He opened his eyes wide and winced as even the little light pouring in from the hall stabbed him in the head."Aziraphale?" His voice trembled but he couldn't calm it. He reached out and grabbed the sleeve of that ridiculous tartan sweater. "You are real." It sounded more like a sob than a words but Aziraphale understood.

The Angel pushed soothing waves of energy into him, pushing his hair away from his face. "Yes my dear." 

Crowley felt a million questions push up his throat and die on his tongue. All he managed to get out was "How?" His gaze traced every inch of the Angel's face.

"I took it back," The Angel's eyes glowed a little, his face red with embarrassment. "Well most of it. We got a little mixed up you and I. A little bit of your essence came along and I had to leave a bit of mine. I don't think it's helped your recovery any but you finally seem to be on the mend." 

Each thing Aziraphale said brought more questions but Crowley was already feeling like sleeping for another century. "Glad to have you back Angel." His voice was failing him. "Why did you change your mind?"

"My dear boy, I don't remember why I did it. I was rather hoping you would tell me. When you are up for it, maybe you can help me figure it out." He grabbed a flask off the nightstand, silver and black and tipped a good amount of it into Crowel's mouth.

The little bit of liquid burned all the way down his throat but in a good way, like Hellfire but gentler. "Where did you get water from Phlegethon?" His voice was stronger, and he felt a little less exhausted.

"Something's you left at my place in the 80s. It was in the coat pocket of a rather tacky velvet blazer." Aziraphale helped Crowley sit up a little, placing a few pillows under his back, careful of his still manifested wings. Everyone he touched the Demon he pushed more healing energy into his friend, careful not to do too much.

Crowley found himself a little nauseated and swallowed hard. "That is where that went. I hope you burnt it." He had bought/manifested a lot of things while spending time with rock bands or those New Romantics that the Angel had hung out with. One time the angel dragged him to an art thing and the Demon had been slipped enough ecstasy to kill a whale... His mind was starting to wander and he forced himself to refocus on the Angel.

Aziraphale hummed, having waited to answer until Crowley was back with him. "You can do that yourself. You may be up to coming over to the store by Christmas Day."

"Christmas?" Last he remembered it had been early spring. But if he concentrated he could feel the grip of winter over the earth outside. 

Aziraphale placed a hand on the side of his face. "Yes, you get to be my Christmas present this year."

Crowley smirked. "You sure you don't want something else?"

Aziraphale hummed again and the brave face he had been presenting flickered. "Only to understand how I could be so incredibly stupid."

"Hmmm." Crowley was already falling back to sleep.

"We will talk more when you are feeling better." Aziraphale settled back into the chair by the bed and picked back up his book.


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More information

Aziraphale hadn't left the apartment since the day Adam helped restore his Grace to him. He had spent over a day tangled up in Crowley's being and pulling as much of his energy out of his friend.

He hoped Crowley would forgive him for the invasion of privacy, for the theft of some of his energy. He could feel it in the back of his will, a comforting reminder of his friend.

Crowley was not really asleep, that made it sound too peaceful. Almost daily Crowley would arch his back off the bed, wings beating as he screamed in agony. The images pulsed faintly in the Angel's head as he tried to hold Crowley down and keep him from injuring himself.

They never talked about the Fall, at this point Aziraphale was glad of it. What he saw was so very little of it but it was beyond his ken to understand even what he saw. Even now, an exile from Heaven and mixed with demonic energy Aziraphale was not Fallen. He felt her love clearly, next to the ever present guilt sitting in the middle of his chest.

Crowley and he had a complicated relationship. It was not romantic as the humans would define it. Aziraphale had never been that interested in sex, except for a period of time with Oscar Wilde that even he really couldn't understand. It was messy and while interesting, he much preferred a new book.

Crowley used sex and a myriad of other sins to midigate the fact that he seldom went to Hell, and did not draw most of his strength from near constant exposure to Hellfire. To him it wasn't so much the act of having sex, doing drugs or getting in fights at the bar down the street so much as it was the sin of it. He fed off the consequences of the actions, the damning energy of them. It wasn't something he could help, it was what he was. It was why he indulged in such widespread chaos that cause minor inconveniences so often. 

Aziraphale knew he even fed on the Angel himself, who was (for a Divine agent) somewhat of a hedonist. Particularly he engaged quite heavily in sloth and gluttony.

No, their relationship was beyond romance, beyond sex, beyond anything that humans could understand. They had been friends for over 6000 years. Losing Crowley would have been more devastating than dying himself...so why had he put Crowley in that position? Why would he ask Adam for something that would surely destroy the creature he loved most?

"I really don't understand." He whispered to himself, setting his book down a bit more forcefully than necessary and skidding down so his head was in his hands, elbows on his knees.

"Please tell me you haven't spent all this time watching me sleep?" Crowley's voice still sounded tired but not as raw. 

"Crowley?" He looked up at the figure in the bed. Serpentine eyes glowed slightly in the semi darkness.

The Demon was sitting, his wings retracted for the first time in months. He had a curious look on his face, between worry, relief and fear. He was much more coherent than the day previous. "Please tell me this is real?"

Aziraphale bolted out of his chair and wrapped his arms around Crowley, wings manifesting and covering them both.

Crowley patted him awkwardly on the back. "Good to see you too Aziraphale."

"I am so sorry my dear." The Angel finally broke down, after all the long months. "I don't understand, I can't possibly fathom why I would try and leave you alone." He could be barely understood amidst the force of his sobs. The force of his shaking made Crowley grit his teeth but it was bearable pain.

His tears tingled against Crowley's skin but the long years (and the spark of divinity sitting cradled inside his chest) had given him a slight edge against the holy energy his friend contained. So he let the Angel cry, until he cried himself out and slipped off into an exhausted sleep. The Serpent just laid back and cradled the sleeping Aziraphale in his arms.

*We cannot allow both of you to walk the earth. You have the capacity to become human and go to heaven. If you refuse Demon Crowley will be eliminated, his ability to survive holy water just means we will need to be more creative.*

Aziraphale woke up with a tortured gasp, pulling Crowley out of his light doze. "You ok Angel?

"I was having a dream...but I don't remember it." All he could recall was stomach turning terror and a voice that seemed to vibrate his bones. He sat up, a little embarrassed to have found himself cuddled up against the Demon.

"Well if it's anything like my dreams, you are better off."


End file.
